I was sorry about the loss of the Alley Café. Regular readers will know I only rarely go troughing down Veggie-Vegan Boulevard, but I usually enjoy myself (as I have done at Café Roya and, only last month, at Dash) and I have pleasant memories of tasty and belly-busting platefuls at the Alley.

The café was named, presumably, because it was located down an alley: Cannon Court, off Long Row. In Nottingham, a better word for alley is twitchell, or even ginnel – the city centre has a dozen such half-hidden passages, most of them under-exploited.

The new business in the Alley Café unit is Kushi-Ya. You will gather from the name that it's not a specialist in Hucknall scran. I’ve just Googled kushi and it is the Japanese word for skewer … which turns out to be one of the modes of delivery at this very agreeable new restaurant.

The upstairs dining room, brightened by skylights above some dramatic oak beams, is spare and uncluttered, in the Japanese way. Just grey floor tiles and pale timber furniture.

Kushi-Ya lies down an alley off Long Row

The only ornaments are two items of Japanese clothing suspended from the pale timber walls … and the standard oriental good-luck cat, its mechanical left fore-leg waving at arriving customers.

There is also something spare and restrained about the menu: five choices in each of the snack, small plate and skewer sections, plus blackboard specials such as (earlier this week) miso soup, braised pork belly and Korean rice cakes. No problem. I like short menus. And I liked what I sampled at Kushi-Ya.

Starting with the avocado dish with smoked tofu and mizuna salad. The avocado pieces were nestled in plenty of nicely-dressed rocket-like leaves. The smoker treatment achieved the impossible and actually made the tofu interesting.

Inside Kushi-ya in Cannon Court - it used to be the Alley Cafe

Sprinkled on top were countless pieces of what tasted like popped grain. Imagine 250 savoury Rice Krispies … and try not to imagine how my chopsticks technique was exposed.

Even better were the two skewers of asparagus pieces – I never miss the stuff during the English season. Lightly grilled, they were dressed with black pepper and the sauce known as kimizu, something eggy and close to the traditional western accompaniment of Hollandaise.

My protein ration came in an exquisite dish of finely-sliced cured mackerel with tomatoes, shiso flowers and an oily green dressing. It was a subtle and rewarding celebration of my favourite saltwater fish.

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This was my healthiest luncheon of the year so far. I thought I’d put that right with a pudding. Having downed the refreshing combination of pear with creamy yoghurt and sake granita, I’ll go further and say this was my best luncheon of the year so far.

The music, of the popular variety, was slightly too loud for eardrums of my vintage. Nothing that a pair of wire-cutters can’t put right. But nearly everything seems to be going right at Kushi-Ya, and that includes some knowledgeable service.

I noticed three customers who appeared to be from a long way east of Cleethorpes, and possibly from as far as you can go in that direction before you hit the Pacific. I also noticed that they polished off everything put of front of them.